Antony, it will be remembered, bade Cleopatra join him in Cilicia. Bonaparte might well beg Hermione to join him at Saint-Cloud. The Grecian princess was not prouder than the Queen of Egypt; Hermione was not less beautiful than Cleopatra, and ought to have been taken down the Seine in a gilded galley, just as the Queen of Egypt ascended the Cydnus. But that would have taken too long: the First Consul was impatient to pay his addresses and, admitting the weakness artistes have for flattery, the débutante was probably in no less hurry to receive them.
Hermione reached Saint-Cloud half an hour after midnight, and left it at six in the morning. She came out victorious as Cleopatra: like Cleopatra, she had had the conqueror of the world at her feet. But the conqueror of the world, who thought it astonishing that a débutante, whom his brother had told him lived in the hôtel du Pérou, drank water and lived on lentils, should possess an English veil worth a hundred louis and a cashmere shawl worth a thousand crowns, tore in pieces, in a fit of jealousy, both the cashmere shawl and the English veil.
I have often argued with Georges that this was not done out of jealousy, but simply for the fun of the thing. She always persisted it was done out of jealousy, and I had not the desire to contradict her.
Some days after Georgine's little nocturnal journey, the rumour of her triumph leaked out; she was playing the part of Émilie, and when she declaimed, in accents of true Roman pride, the line—
"Si j'ai séduit Cinna, j'en séduirai bien d'autres...." the whole audience turned towards the First Consul's box and burst into applause.
From that night there sprang up two dramatic, and almost political, factions in the Théâtre-Français: the partisans of Mademoiselle Georges, and the partisans of Mademoiselle Duchesnois—the Georgians, and the Carcassians. The word Carcassians was doubtless substituted for Circassians as being more expressive. But what is the meaning of the word? Upon my word, I dare not say: I leave it to the investigation of savants and the research of etymologists. Lucien Bonaparte, Madame Bacciochi and Madame Lætitia were at the head of the Georgians; Joséphine flung herself headlong into the Carcassian party; Cambacérès remained neutral.
[1] Montmartre.
[2] Le vent.
[3] Le blé.